Books in Brief: FICTION

By KAREN LEGGETT

Published: May 5, 1996

LIVE AT FIVE By David Haynes. Milkweed Editions, $21.95.

Somehow, the Twin Cities always seem above the problems that beset most other American cities -- yet "Live at Five" has all of them, right in St. Paul. Brandon Wilson is a relentlessly middle-class African-American who anchors the local newscast on KCKK. Nita Sallis, darker and poorer than Brandon, is also an anchor -- for her three kids in the slummy apartment building where she works as a caretaker. As each of them does whatever it takes to survive, their courses intersect. It appears to Nita that "the line between right and wrong was not so much dotted as it was wavy and ever-changing like the surface of a flag in a breeze" -- and David Haynes draws that wavy line through every scene of his book. How far can you stretch the truth for the sake of a boost in the ratings? Can you trade a story that's just plain wrong for the sake of one that's really right? What if the story is your life, or the lives of your children? After enduring some excessively foul tirades by the station manager, Brandon and Nita give answers to these questions that are usually self-serving, sometimes clever -- and always provocative. Karen Leggett